A NEW YEAR'S EXPERIENCE WITH GOD

Beloved, I wish you all a blessed and contagiously successful 2011.My experiences on my trip from Warri to Jos, Plateau State Nigeria yesterday taught me a deeper and richer meaning of Psalm 127.1^b“...If the LORD does not protect a city, it is useless for the guard to stay alert.”

My family and I began the journey from Warri with the traditional prayer –“Please Lord protect us on this trip in Jesus’ name, Amen!” The adventure began when I missed the turn off from Benin dual carriage express road into Auchi bye-pass. Suddenly we found ourselves zooming fast towards Lagos. We had the good sense to ask before we had gone 5 kilometers. We turned back and the only opening unto the right road had 'Local Government Council' poachers who forcibly stopped us and demanded a –you guessed it- horrible amount of money to free ourselves from their clutches (N30, 000.00). We were charged with violating 'emission' permit, sewage permit, radio and TV permit (coincidentally, my car radio is been bad for about six months) and some others permits! In the end, after more than 50 minutes delay and a submission of all the money I kept for the journey (plus bro Ebenezer's N1, 000.00) we were released to finally begin the adventure. The journey through Okene, Lokoja and Abaji were smooth except for another 30 minutes delay at Lokoja. We decided not to stop and sleep at Abuja (as I told one of my Bishops, Elder Agbogun, that I wish to sleep on my bed in Jos city) but proceeded through Nassarawa State –Toto, Keffi. The road was bad and we had a couple of 'flying trips' –hitting potholes and launching into space- and also battles to control the car after 'landing.' We ran into a deep one 4 kilometers to Keffi and I lost a tyre. We crawled slowly and forward unto the side of the road to survey the damage and to put scattered car parts back into their slots when suddenly a small Jeep, CRV or so, ran into the same trench with a loud noise and emerged only to slam into a biker and his passenger who were unfortunately trying to cross the road. The two on the bike were killed instantly and we were faced with a vehicle that has lost control, madly rushing towards where we were packed! I stood transfixed with hands outstretched making motions as if to stop the jeep from hitting our packed car with a sinking feeling in my heart that I was witnessing a horrible dual accident in the making! By the special grace and protection of God, the driver managed to stop the car an inch from ours and feeling so relieved, I almost collapsed.  I quickly drove the car away from that spot even with the bad tyre to avoid more problems. After changing tyre, we moved on for another 90 kilometers and our spare tyre started 'dancing.'  I stopped twice to check was wrong with the tyre.  Two cars passed us and 2 minutes later just before a railway crossing between Keffi and Gidan Waya we saw a car stopped and armed men looking like Police officers surrounded it dragging occupants out unto the road, brandishing rifles. My wife said they were armed robbers so I stopped and focused my lights on them. One of the car's occupants escaped into the bush and ran towards us. He did not even make any attempts to come near us but was bent on getting away as far as possible from the scene. Then there was a shot as the armed men shot at us probably to tell me to put off my lights.  Another car passed us and was stopped and immediately put off its lights. Simultaneously, a bus from the opposite side of the road stopped on seeing the robbery and started reversing also. Then it dawned on me affirmatively that we are witnessing a robbery and we were fortunate to be able to turn and run. We did turn and zoomed away warning all approaching vehicles. The occupants of one bus that we warned later told us that they were chased by the robbers when they also turned around. We were overtaken by the bus on a terrible high speed as they were trying to get away.  We shakily stopped at the next big town –Barde, which is about 25 kilometers away from the scene and slept in the car till this morning when we resumed our journey to Jos.

During the long night in the car, I was reflecting on the Psalm. What made my tyre to go bad when it did?  The sudden dance of the tyre made me stop and become a witness to a robbery instead of being the victim!  Did an angel give the old tyre a kick?  We were heading for a trap but God who watches over us stopped us before we got there.  Unless the Lord was watching out for us, the trip would have been a disaster several times.

Well, the year is starting nicely with God in control as usual.  As Melonie Hames Pack nicely quoted Corrie Ten Boom on Face Book, "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God," we need to depend more this year on God's protection and guidance.

Have a great 2011.